Subject: The Philadelphia Story - Part 2
 

 Hey,

 This is your roving reporter, filing her story from GOP convention city.

 A fun game to play in Philadelphia is Spot the Republicans. It's a pretty
 easy game. As Rush says, "Follow the money." We saw a 60-ish white man
 (very white) get out of a Town Car like he was stepping off his yacht, in his
 blue blazer, blue-and-white pinstriped shirt, white trousers and tassled shoes.
 Republican. (By the way, his driver was black. Another black man the GOP
 found room for in their big tent.)

 We saw a woman shuffling down the street in baggy cargo shorts, a t-shirt and
 sneakers toting a backpack and looking slightly lost. Democrat.

 A gaggle of prosperous-looking men in tuxes and ornamented women with shoulder
 wraps and bone-straight hair pulled into severe buns at the napes of their necks
 ...Republicans.

 Every person in the Denny's where we ate our eggs-and-grits breakfast...Democrats.

 We're driving a big ol' blue Grand Prix that my friend paid $600 for. I'm
 wearing cut-off Levi's and have long curly hair that is un-hairsprayed,
 uncoiffed and generally unfussed over, a flower child, I have often been told.
 My friend, although an older white man and so he should be a Republican,
 wears khakis and a t-shirt and, some would say, though not I, that he has gone
 too long without a haircut. What does all this mean?...Democrats.

 We found a hotel room at the second place we tried -- the Comfort Inn in
 Essington, which is one or two exits past the First Union Center Sports Arena
 on 95 South, where the wolves are gathered. I don't know what this means, but
 the desk clerk bore a remarkable resemblance to Dubya, but then he gave us a
 $20 break on the room, so I knew it wasn't him. We switched on the t.v. in
 our basic but comfortable hotel room and watched a report about the protesters
 having to sleep in parking lots for lack of available hotel space. So of
 course, being Democrats, we felt guilty, but not guilty enough to leave the
 hotel.

 The police presence is overwhelming. They're everywhere.
 It's like they're having their own convention at the same time as the GOP.
 Every few minutes, a roving band of about 20 of them sails by on their mountain bikes.
 Yeah, that's intimidating, especially when they wear those bad-ass black knee-socks.
 But I haven't seen one Ryder truck, so I guess maybe they're effective after all.

 The city is housing a bunch of state troopers and regular city cops in the
 dorms at Temple University, which is right up the road from the Convention.
 The biggest action I've seen so far was 7 or 8 cops making an arrest. One of
 the cops handcuffed the guy while another radioed in the arrest of the suspect
 for "suspicious activity." I think in this case, the suspicious activity was
 "walking while black."

 This concludes my second report. Tomorrow -- the First Union Center.

 cm